returning his empty glass to the tray of a passing waiter. “Just my gold.”
“The women you fall for,” said Franciszek. “I’m not surprised.”
“Thank you,” replied Jarek mildly. “And here I was hoping she wanted me for my wickedly good looks.”
Jarek always carried a small wooden dragon with him. When they’d been boys, he’d broken it off one of the wall carvings at Hala Smoków. It was tiny, whittled of varnished wood, and now he turned it thoughtfully in his hands.
“Youth is temporary,” said Franciszek wisely. “Gold is forever.”
Lukasz snorted.
“It certainly is not,” he muttered.
“Maybe not the way you spend it,” rejoined Franciszek sweetly.
Lukasz was twenty, bored, and a little tipsy. He lit a cigarette, which Franciszek immediately snatched out of his teeth, hissing: “You can’t smoke in here!”
Lukasz jerked back. Franciszek crumpled the cigarette in the cupped palms of a stuffed bannik.
Jarek flipped the tiny dragon nervously between his fingers, watching them.
“Jarek,” Lukasz heard his older brother saying. “Did you see the sculptures in the next chamber? I think you’d be quite interested in them—”
They left Lukasz to drain his glass, hunt down another. Damian Biele? was still lecturing some attendees, now standing next to a wooden model of a small cabin supported by a chicken leg.
This is how he makes money, thought Lukasz. This is how he makes friends.
Fake monsters. Fake thrills. Jarek was too mild to notice. Franciszek was so damn excited about being included. Lukasz was the only one who saw the invitation for what it really was. He and his brothers weren’t guests, for God’s sake.
They were part of the exhibit.
“Jarek,” growled Franciszek through gritted teeth. “Why is he still drinking?”
Lukasz glanced up, dazed. Realized that he was sitting alone, in a deserted passageway. Someone, somewhere, was screaming.
“Do you hear someone screaming?” he asked, but both brothers ignored him.
“He’s twenty, little brother,” said Jarek. Lukasz noticed that Jarek was just as drunk as he was.
Strange, he thought. Usually, Jarek didn’t drink at all.
“C’mon,” Jarek muttered. “Let him have some fun.”
At that moment, the youngest of the Wolf-Lords was violently sick in the mineshaft.
“The—king—is—here—” growled Franciszek.
“I saw,” said Jarek with unexpected venom. “Tell me, did he ask you to read for him?” He ruffled Franciszek’s hair. “Such a lovely party trick. I say we take bets. We’ll make a killing; that lot out there is sure to bet against you—”
“Shut up,” hissed Franciszek. “You just have to ruin everything, don’t you? We’re being honored tonight, you ungrateful—”
Jarek’s voice was deadly calm. Lukasz had finished being sick and was now sprawled on the cavern floor, moaning.
“Finish that thought, little brother,” said Jarek. “I dare you.”
For a moment, the pair of them stood silently in the dark vault. In their sparkling black uniforms, clean-shaven and not covered in soot and blood for once, they almost looked like Wrony.
When Franciszek didn’t answer, Jarek’s mouth stayed flat and cold.
“I didn’t think so,” he said, without an ounce of triumph.
He straightened up with Lukasz half draped over his shoulders. Jarek fit in with the Miasto citizens. He’d always been the best pretender. But neither gold spectacles nor books could hide the dogged look in Franciszek’s eyes, the way his mouth hung crookedly, like Lukasz’s did. If anything, the effort Franciszek took to fit in had made him stand out even more.
“Just take him back to the hotel,” said Franciszek at last.
“You even talk like one of them now,” Jarek said, smirking. “No accent.”
Mock applause from Jarek. Lukasz tried to join in, only succeeded in slapping his own face. Franciszek’s gaze was flat. Sober. Cold.
“Just go.”
And they did. And although Lukasz did not remember how or when it had happened, Jarek had somehow gotten him back to the hotel, because he woke up there the next morning. The front page of the newspaper had a picture of the exhibition. The three brothers flanked the tiny Damian Biele?, four glasses raised, four smiles. Two of the brothers had crooked front teeth.
They looked happy. Looking at those three, thought Lukasz, no one would have ever guessed they were pretending.
But by then, Jarek, who had always pretended not to care, was long gone.
36
REN AND LUKASZ TWISTED AROUND at the same time.
It took her eyes—human eyes—a moment to adjust to the darkness beyond the arches of the hall. The human vision didn’t bother her, like it would have once upon a time. She wondered if that was weakness, and if it was, she wondered why she didn’t care.
But then her eyesight sharpened, slowly and with some squinting,